If
Leipzig’s staging of Die Feen
remains my highlight so far of Wagner’s anniversary year, this recital, on its
smaller, relatively unassuming, scale probably comes next. Wagner’s songs play
an interesting part in his output. Little heard, they are rarely
characteristic, at least given the Wagner we generally hear – and of course,
excluding the mature Wesendonck-Lieder.
(Matters seem a little different, though not entirely so, when we admit, as we
should, Wagner’s first three operas into the canon.) Yet, if most would be hard
put to guess the composer, the songs not only show gifted assumption of various
styles, as suggested in his early prose writings on German, French, and Italian
music; they are well worth hearing in their own right.

Janice
Watson and Joseph Middleton certainly proved excellent advocates for this
music. Bar very occasional strain on a high note and a few confusions with the
words, Watson’s engaged and engaging performances will surely have won a good few
converts. Command of line was impeccable throughout, as was diction. One never
had the sense that a favour was somehow being done to ‘obscure’ repertoire; the
songs were treated with the care, dignity, and understanding that they deserve.
Likewise Middleton’s accounts of the piano parts. Hovering, as does Wagner,
between the pianistic – Wagner was never much of a pianist himself – and the
orchestral, Middleton’s animated performances offered great harmonic and
stylistic understanding, as well as unfailing support for the singer.

'Gretchen am Spinnrade',
the sixth of Wagner’s op.5 Goethe Faust-Lieder (1831), may never dislodge
Schubert from our affections, but it comes surprisingly close to him in tone
and indeed in assuredness. The 'Melodram',
last in that set, peers some way into the future. Neither its Weltschmerz nor
its harmonic language would seem out of place in The Flying Dutchman. Die Feen is perhaps closer
still; indeed, given a period of immersion in Wagner’s first opera, I was
struck by a recurrent phrase, which he would reuse, consciously or otherwise,
on that occasion. Middleton’s structured tone painting was splendidly complemented
by Watson’s spoken delivery of the text. Wagner, we were reminded, was most
definitely a ‘German’ composer stylistically, before what we think of as
his ‘early’ experiments with more Italianate and French styles. Not for nothing
had Der Freischütz
made such an impression on him as a boy. The Georg Scheuerlin setting, Der Tannenbaum,
from 1838, sounds more mature still: a wonderfully dark evocation of death
foretold. As the fir-tree explains to the boy, it feels bitter when thinking of
him, since the axe would soon fall upon it, to furnish the wood for the boy’s
coffin: ‘Daß schon die Axt mich suchet zu deinem Totenschrein, das macht mich
stets so trübe, gedenk’ ich, Knabe dein.’ One might almost think a version of
Siegfried, with more of a consciousness than his successor would attain, was
already beginning to receive his forest education.

The
French songs would surely only have been recognised as the work of the same
composer by someone who knew. They show an almost disturbing ability to assume
not only a very different style from the Lieder, but even from each other.
If Berlioz’s mélodiesare perhaps the most abiding presence, especially in the delightful Tous n’est qu’images fugitivesandMignonne,
then it is rather Meyerbeer who comes to the fore in the well-nigh scena-like Adieux de Marie Stuart.
Watson’s deft handling of the coloratura was complemented by Middleton’s
well-attuned ear for the moment when the piano should really turn operatic. La tombe dit à la rose
is an oddity, in that the piano part is almost entirely absent. It might have
been interesting to hear an attempt at realisation, but one can understand the
desire simply to present what Wagner wrote; certainly his melodic gift,
whatever contemporaries might have said (on which, see David Trippett’s excellent new book, Wagner’s Melodies), did not desert
him on this or indeed any other occasion.

The
Wesendonck-Lieder
are of course familiar territory. Both performers clearly relished the
opportunity now to present Wagner fully-formed, if still in (relative!) bagatelle-like
mode. Watson’s command of idiom was as impressive as her at times quite
extraordinary vocal shading, finely matched in the piano part. If, at first, I
wondered whether ‘Im Treibhaus’ was being taken a little too swiftly, I was
entirely won over by an account which, though it did not shun Wagner’s Tristan intimations,
recognised quite properly that this was a song in its own right. Middleton
ensured that there was no reason whatsoever to lament the lack of an orchestra,
whether Wagner’s, Felix Mottl’s, or Henze’s enchanting chamber scoring.

Schumann’s
Liederkreis,
op.24, nevertheless reminded one of the difference between a great composer who
wrote some wonderful songs and a great composer of Lieder (amongst other
things). The ease of song-writing, the complex psychology of those miraculous
piano parts, was given full opportunity for expression; the disturbing
inevitability of ‘Mit Myrten und Rosen’ brought a tear or two to my eye. Liszt
may not have been primarily a song-composer, and unsurprisingly proved more
experimental in that field than Schumann, but the examples of his art we heard
also served to remind us of the appalling neglect he continues to suffer. The ‘gypsy’
music of the Lenau setting, Die drei
Zigeuner; the proto-impressionism of Ihr Glocken von Marling; the keenness and
intelligence of response to Heine in Im Rhein, im schönen Strome: all was powerfully
conveyed. Watson showed herself just as much at ease with the vocal line as
Middleton with the gorgeous piano parts, a treat for any pianist with the
requisite technique and stylistic command. It is probably Liszt who deserves another
anniversary, since there remains so much of his music known only to
specialists, if at all. It seemed meet and right, then, that the encore should
be a loving account of Über
allen Gipfeln ist Ruh.

Wagner
200 continues throughout the year. There are two further concerts
this week alone; I shall be reporting back from the Aurora Orchestra’s Wagner
and Beethoven concert. I have also, doubtless unwisely, agreed to participate
in a debate in October on an issue about which more nonsense is spoken than any
other, namely, Wagner and the
Jews.